


On the down low

by tawg



Series: tumblr ficlets [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Men in Black (Movies)
Genre: Case Fic, Coulson as a rookie agent, Gen, Kay is not thrilled about being stuck with him, WIP Warning, inter-agency cooperation, pre-MIB, pre-avengers, road trip fic, things are more than they seem
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-12
Updated: 2013-10-11
Packaged: 2017-12-29 03:50:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1000526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tawg/pseuds/tawg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Agent Kay is on the trail of an alien, and he's stuck with barely-past-training Agent Coulson as a partner. As always, there's more to the situation than meets the eye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a collection of connected ficlets that were originally posted to tumblr. Fair warning - this story is unfinished.

Coulson hasn’t worked with aliens before. He’s completely unprepared for the explosion of limbs into tentacles, and tentacles into barbs. Kay doesn’t know who he pissed off to get stuck with a junior agent, a _junior agent of SHIELD_ on this one. Probably everyone.

"You hanging in there kid?" he calls over as his gun charges, the high whine of it audible because every MIB’s life depends on the pitch reaching the right level at the right time.

Coulson looks over with a wild grin on his face, like he’s thrilled to bits and having the time of his life, the grey suit that doesn’t fit him right is already torn at one shoulder and splattered with goop across the shirt. “Feet still kicking, sir,” he calls back cheerfully.

Kay snorts. He’s too old and weary to smile at Coulson’s enthusiasm, but he can appreciate dedication to protocol and the way the kid pops out of his hiding spot to read the alien its rights does make a pretty good distraction. 

"Not a great plan," he says later, as Coulson is trying to scrape enough splattered alien off himself to be able to move.

"Not a great aim," Coulson replies without malice.

Kay doesn’t need to defend himself to a wet-behind-the-ears agent, but his shoulder aches and the “Got the job done” slips out anyway.

Coulson glances up at him them, a small smile on his face that makes him look devious but still so very young.

"Come on," Kay says. Coulson doesn’t ask where they’re going, doesn’t complain about walking away from the clean up before they’re due, and he doesn’t question the drink Kay buys him.

So at least he’s smart about some things.


	2. Chapter 2

Another bad encounter, another discharged weapon, another set of clothes ruined. Coulson is fussing over the leg of his suit, as if getting the goop off it will make him look any more professional. Mostly he looks like an ass, and Kay snaps at him mainly to get him to quit fidgeting.

"When SHIELD finally shells out for a new suit," he says bluntly. "Make sure they get one that fits."

Coulson looks up at him, wide-eyed for a moment (fifteen years younger and god it shows through so easily), and then slowly straightens into something that is not quite parade rest, his thumbs hooked together and his feet not quite far enough apart. Not a military man, or perhaps not a very good one. But he looks at Kay patiently, waiting for a full debrief of the suit situation.

To hell with that. It’s not his job to groom SHIELD’s baby agents. And there’s no easy place to start. The suit is too long in the arms, to wide in the shoulders. The collar of Coulson’s shirt comes too high, giving him a slightly choked look, and the boots he wears do a poor job of masquerading as dress shoes. 

"If you ever want someone to not take you seriously," Kay says, "dress exactly like that."

Coulson looks down at himself. Not a fleeting glace of self-consciousness, but a long and careful assessment. He shifts one thumb, tracking where the fabric of the suit jacket brushes across the back of his hand (his shirt sleeve completely hidden). He raises a hand to his tie, cautiously feeling the knot that is too small and too tight because he’d tied it as he was hurrying out of the motel room.

(Coulson’s hair is also sticking up at the back, a messy fluff of bed hair near the top of his skull that has made Kay increasingly exasperated throughout the day because it has refused to settle, and he sure as hell isn’t going to spit on his hand and smooth it down for the kid.)

Coulson finally looks back up at Kay and nods. “Noted.”

Kay pushes past him, heading back towards the car. On the ride to the next spot on the map, he refuses to acknowledge the way Coulson watches him drive, tracking the way the lines of his suit change with each shift of the gears as they travel along the highway.


	3. Chapter 3

Coulson isn’t the worst SHIELD agent Kay has been stuck working with. He always fastens his seatbelt, never touches the radio, gives Kay first choice of the crappy twin beds. He’s good with data, too, which is why they’ve been stuck together on this assignment.

"We need help with containment, you need help tracking it down." Those had been the words from SHIELD on high and MIB hadn’t been able to refuse. They’d thought it was just one alien going berserk, then two. Then it turned into a string of them and Kay has met enough things that live inside other things to be able to recognise a parasite, even one who hops hosts and leaves their prior engagements as smears on the pavement.

Coulson is a good tracker. Diligent. He sits on his sagging bed in shorts and a singlet, his ears and shoulders red from the shower, toes still damp, hair neatly combed. (He’ll likely fall asleep before it’s entirely dry, leading to that fluffy little mess in the back that Kay refuses to get involved with.) He’s reading through the day’s reports from various departments and services, neat stacks of the same shit from different dates fanned around him as he sits with one leg hanging off the bed and the other tucked beneath him. 

Kay never puts much stock in reports, but Coulson keeps finding whatever he’s looking for, marking a word with a single dot over it, finding more beacons in other reports. There’s a map spread across the foot of his bed and the path of small towns he’s drawn across it has been correct so far. Three more are marked ahead on his route, and Coulson carefully marks a fourth one in.

"Tell me something, kid," Kay says, leaning against the bar fridge with his arms crossed over his chest. "If you can see that far ahead, how come we don’t just jump ahead and nab it there?"

"If we change our pattern, she’ll change hers," Coulson replies. Kay watches him and Coulson gnaws on the end of his cheap plastic pen. Eventually the other agent looks up, the cap of the pen hooked on his lower teeth, pulling his lip down and exposing the dark pink of his mouth. "What?"

Kay shifts his jaw, waits for Coulson to fidget under his gaze but the other agent never has and doesn’t seem interested in starting now, just stares back with wide blue eyes, waiting of Kay to give him a lead to follow. “You want to tell me exactly what it is we’re hunting here?” he asks bluntly.

Coulson pulls the pen out of his mouth, wipes the chewed lid off on the bedspread. “You said we wouldn’t know until we caught up with it,” he replies.

Kay stares at him a moment longer before pushing away from the refrigerator “That I did,” he agrees, and then steps into the small and steamy bathroom, leaving Coulson alone with his maps and his reports and his chewed and cracking pen.

He’s not the worst SHIELD agent Kay has ever worked with, but he’s a liar just like the rest of them.


	4. Chapter 4

Kay doesn’t like being out in the sticks, doesn’t like being away from MIB and the network and the familiarity. “It’ll be good for you,” Z had said. Hah.

He’s been on the road with Coulson for sixteen days. That’s a long time to be in pursuit. The alien population of Earth is almost entirely refugees, their families, and axillary services. People who know the rules and aren’t especially interested in breaking them. The small rampages-of-one through country towns is out of character, and the way the poor things tear themselves apart in their rage is new.

They’d gotten to the scene early that day. Taken the target down before he could take himself out. There had been an exit wound under his left shoulder that wasn’t caused by any MIB weaponry, though Coulson had smeared the rapidly decomposing skin over the little hole as he made a pretence of patting the body down.

Sixteen days is a long time to be sharing socks with someone you don’t trust.

Kay stared out at the silent landscape around the motel for a moment, and then turned his attention to the lighter in his hands and the cigarette between his lips. He had been cutting down, but there were times when the urge to work through a whole pack itched under his absent fingerprints. The whole business left a taste like ash in his mouth anyway.

"A guy can’t get a smoke in peace without the government snooping on him?" Kay called over his shoulder.

Coulson ambles into Kay’s line of vision. Jacket off, tie gone, sleeves rolled up, top button undone. He’d managed to pick up a shirt that fit him in the last town, though Kay strongly suspected that it was a fluke. “I was warned that letting you disappear would be a security compromise.”

Kay snorts. “And whose security you think I’m compromising for sneaking outside for twenty minutes?”

"Mine," Coulson replies honestly, leaning his lower back against the car.

Kay stares at him for a while as Coulson stares up at the stars. It’s probably just a coincidence that there’s a phone in the car that Coulson shouldn’t know about, one that connects to headquarters. Kay had been sticking close to Coulson because he didn’t trust the kid to stay out of trouble. Apparently the feeling is mutual “Don’t want to get run through by an alien, huh?” Kay asks, mumbling around his cigarette as he finally lights it.

"Not if I can help it," Coulson replies, a small smile at the edge of his mouth. He looks relaxed and unguarded, his legs stretched out and arms crossed over his chest. Kay learned quickly that Coulson has exceptional peripheral vision, and the way his eyes don’t shift from point to point as he stares up at the stars is a tell that his attention is on something much closer. 

Coulson is a little too sneaky and a lot too lucky to be an analyst, but nowhere near polished enough to be a field agent. 

Kay tucks his hands into the pockets of his slacks and rolls up onto his toes and then back down. “Hey kid, you ever going to tell me what we’re actually hunting?” he asks.

"I don’t know what we’re hunting," Coulson replies, and then his gaze finally starts to flick around the heavens. Maybe he’s nervous about the conversation, maybe he’s spotted a shooting star. Either way, it seems like a good sign to keep pushing.

"You know something."

"Not much," Coulson replies, glancing down at Kay and giving him a small, self-deprecating smile. Kay stares stonily back, and Coulson’s expression drops into something more professional. "And what I do know-"

"If you try to tell me that what you know is classified, I’m going to pack up and head back to New York," Kay says bluntly. 

It’s a stalemate for a long moment, the two of them staring at each other. Kay eventually pulls a hand from his pocket to ash his cigarette, and Coulson watches the orange tip bob in the dusk, shifting his jaw as if seeing how well his mouth will fit around a lie. He stays silent instead, and Kay can respect that for a few hours at least.

"Grab your jacket," he says, pulling the car keys out of his pocket. "If we can’t gossip the night away, looks like we’ll have to drink it into submission."

It’s against SHIELD protocol to drink while on a mission (it’s against SHIELD protocol to do a lot of fun things), but Coulson gets his jacket and Kay has a few moments alone to consider the smoke in his lungs, the stars above him, and the mess he’s somehow been dragged into.


End file.
